Scattered Émigrés Haiti Once Shunned Are Now a Lifeline
Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times
The Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, pastor of Notre Dame d'Haiti in Miami's Little Haiti, stood outside the church greeting parishioners after a recent afternoon mass.
Sign In to E-Mail
Single Page
Reprints
Share
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: February 3, 2010
MIAMI — Since leaving Haiti in 1974 and becoming a successful engineer here, Fritz Armand has often felt that his skills were unwelcome in his native country.
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Panoramas: Views From Haiti
Related
The Tech Savvy Lend a Hand in Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Sports Business: A Manufacturer's Debt to Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Victims From Haiti Arrive in Atlanta (February 4, 2010)
Rebuilding Effort in Haiti Turns Away From Tents (February 4, 2010)
The Lede: Questions for Baptists, Praise for Scientologists in Haiti
The Lede: A Glimpse of Haiti Before the Catastrophe
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
Enlarge This Image
Barbara P. Fernandez for The New York Times
Fritz Armand, a native Haitian, received donations for earthquake relief on Jan. 24 at Notre Dame d'Haiti church in Miami.
His efforts to build a desalination facility and a portable power plant in Haiti failed in part, he says, because of antipathy toward expatriates. He has been called "diaspore," an insulting term. Under Haitian law, when he became an American citizen, he automatically "renounced" his birthplace.
For years, educated émigrés like Mr. Armand, from Miami to Montreal, have tried hard to play a more vital role in Haiti's development, with little success.
But the earthquake has suddenly changed all that, reducing old hostilities to rubble. Depleted of leadership and talent, the Haitian government — once known for ejecting elected officials who held a United States passport — is begging its own for aid, and the Haitian-born have responded en masse.
"The diaspora must organize to help us," Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said last week at a conference in Montreal. "I have no alternative. They have to be involved in Haiti; they have to be engaged."
He need not have asked. Groups like the Haitian American Nurses Association, based in Miami, and the Haitian League in New Jersey have sent dozens of Creole-speaking doctors and nurses to help. In Canada, hundreds of Haitians who work for the government are pushing for a furlough program to allow them to help back home.
At the request of diaspora leaders, the Organization of American States will convene an international gathering of Haitian groups next month to map out plans for reconstruction and to ensure that the Haitian diaspora is included, not only by the government but also by contractors and nongovernmental organizations.
For his part, Mr. Armand, 53, the former director of public works for Opa-Locka, Fla., has spent contented days poring over uniform business codes and inspecting new types of construction materials, preparing to go with others in the Haitian-American Association of Engineers and Scientists to help inspect bridges and build sanitation systems for camps. This time, he will be in Haiti at the invitation of the minister of public works.
"Now that they have no choice but to let us in, that will allow them to see: They're not all that bad," Mr. Armand said. "They're not coming to take my job. They're coming to help."
Still, the Haitian government's new attitude has not erased all skepticism. Some in the diaspora say they have been kept at bay by fears that they would usurp jobs or expose corruption, while others say the negative sentiment has been a political tool, fanned for cynical ends. Whatever the reason, it did not ease the hurt when Haiti welcomed the billions of dollars that émigrés sent home but rebuffed their expertise.
To prove Haiti wants more than just money from its diaspora, said Chalmers Larose, a Haitian-born political science professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, the government must follow up with policy changes.
"If I want to go to Haiti, I can go, but I would have to be a tourist," Professor Larose said. "There is no agency to channel my expertise."
The Haitian diaspora is estimated to be at least two million strong, with more than half a million Haitian-born people in the United States alone, heavily concentrated in South Florida and Brooklyn. In 2008, Haitians around the world sent at least $1.3 billion to Haiti, far more than the amount of foreign aid the country received, according to the World Bank.
While many Haitian expatriates, especially the illegal immigrants, remain poor, there is a robust elite of businessmen and professionals who view themselves as a recovering Haiti's best hope.
"There are more Haitian doctors here than there are in Haiti," said Jean-Robert Lafortune, the executive director of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition in Miami, who said the earthquake was a chance for new cooperative spirit to take hold.
Gerard Alphonse Ferere, a retired professor living in Boca Raton, Fla., said antipathy toward Haitians who left was limited to a small segment of the political and economic elite. Still, Mr. Ferere said, that small group can be pernicious.
Mr. Ferere was forced into exile with his wife in 1963, under threat of execution by the Duvaliers, who brutally ruled the country from the 1950s to the '80s. When he returned after Jean-Claude Duvalier was ousted in 1986, he found that some questioned his loyalty.
"They said: 'You are not Haitian anymore. We don't want you. Where were you?' " Mr. Ferere recalled. "So I have been victimized twice."
Mr. Ferere said the questioners were connected with the Duvalier government and wanted to discredit its opponents.
On an economic and political level, the diaspora could be threatening, said Harry Casimir, 30, a Haitian-born businessman who opened an information technology business there just before the earthquake.
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Panoramas: Views From Haiti
Related
The Tech Savvy Lend a Hand in Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Sports Business: A Manufacturer's Debt to Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Victims From Haiti Arrive in Atlanta (February 4, 2010)
Rebuilding Effort in Haiti Turns Away From Tents (February 4, 2010)
The Lede: Questions for Baptists, Praise for Scientologists in Haiti
The Lede: A Glimpse of Haiti Before the Catastrophe
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
"Once the elites have money and power," Mr. Casimir said, "they're scared of people like me, the younger generation and so on. Because we travel around the world and see how other governments function, and obviously most countries are not corrupt like Haiti."
But several expatriates acknowledged that some of the fault might lie in a certain swagger on their own part.
"People in the diaspora may be coming with that complex of superiority, where they think, We know better; we can do it better," said the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, pastor of Notre Dame d'Haiti in the Little Haiti section of Miami.
Yet Father Jean-Mary provoked murmurs of excitement Sunday at a packed high Mass here, when he proclaimed, "This is the moment to suspend politics, because we have had enough politics in Haiti."
He added, "It's time to open Haiti to the diaspora."
Recently, countries like Mexico and Colombia have extended more rights, like the right to vote, to their expatriates, said Alex Stepick, a professor of global and social cultural studies at Florida International University. Even before the earthquake, Haiti had been inching in that direction, with groups like the Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress, meeting for its second time last year to discuss issues like health care, economic development and education.
Other signs of change came after President Bill Clinton's appointment last May as the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. Mr. Clinton's recruitment of large investors galvanized Haitian-born entrepreneurs. And last August, the United States Agency for International Development started a pilot program to provide a two-to-one match for investments by those in the Haitian diaspora in certain industries.
Most significant to many émigrés, a constitutional amendment that would have given them the right to vote and opened the door for them to run for office in Haiti had seemed headed for approval when the quake struck.
That agenda item is now on the back burner because, for now, nothing is more compelling than the chance to help rebuild the country — perhaps, if Mr. Armand has any say, with lightweight fiber-reinforced concrete and inexpensive solar-powered lights.
"We do our work here," Mr. Armand said of his adopted land. "But, really, our heart is in Haiti."
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Panoramas: Views From Haiti
Related
The Tech Savvy Lend a Hand in Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Sports Business: A Manufacturer's Debt to Haiti (February 4, 2010)
Victims From Haiti Arrive in Atlanta (February 4, 2010)
Rebuilding Effort in Haiti Turns Away From Tents (February 4, 2010)
The Lede: Questions for Baptists, Praise for Scientologists in Haiti
The Lede: A Glimpse of Haiti Before the Catastrophe
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
"Once the elites have money and power," Mr. Casimir said, "they're scared of people like me, the younger generation and so on. Because we travel around the world and see how other governments function, and obviously most countries are not corrupt like Haiti."
But several expatriates acknowledged that some of the fault might lie in a certain swagger on their own part.
"People in the diaspora may be coming with that complex of superiority, where they think, We know better; we can do it better," said the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary, pastor of Notre Dame d'Haiti in the Little Haiti section of Miami.
Yet Father Jean-Mary provoked murmurs of excitement Sunday at a packed high Mass here, when he proclaimed, "This is the moment to suspend politics, because we have had enough politics in Haiti."
He added, "It's time to open Haiti to the diaspora."
Recently, countries like Mexico and Colombia have extended more rights, like the right to vote, to their expatriates, said Alex Stepick, a professor of global and social cultural studies at Florida International University. Even before the earthquake, Haiti had been inching in that direction, with groups like the Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress, meeting for its second time last year to discuss issues like health care, economic development and education.
Other signs of change came after President Bill Clinton's appointment last May as the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. Mr. Clinton's recruitment of large investors galvanized Haitian-born entrepreneurs. And last August, the United States Agency for International Development started a pilot program to provide a two-to-one match for investments by those in the Haitian diaspora in certain industries.
Most significant to many émigrés, a constitutional amendment that would have given them the right to vote and opened the door for them to run for office in Haiti had seemed headed for approval when the quake struck.
That agenda item is now on the back burner because, for now, nothing is more compelling than the chance to help rebuild the country — perhaps, if Mr. Armand has any say, with lightweight fiber-reinforced concrete and inexpensive solar-powered lights.
"We do our work here," Mr. Armand said of his adopted land. "But, really, our heart is in Haiti."
10 Americans in Haiti Are Charged With Abduction
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Charisa Coulter who was arrested by Haitian authorities for attempting to take Haitian children to the Dominican Republic, is led out of the courthouse after being charged with abduction into waiting police vehicles after being iindicted in Port-au-Prince.
comments
Sign In to E-Mail
Print
Reprints
Share
By MARC LACEY
Published: February 4, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week without the government's consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Back Story With The Times's Marc Lacey
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Panoramas: Views From Haiti
Related
The Lede: Woman Detained in Haiti Also Due in Idaho Court
The Lede: Questions for Baptists, Praise for Scientologists in Haiti
The Lede: Road From Haiti Was Paved With Good Intentions, American Baptists Say
Room for Debate: Haiti's Children and the Adoption Question (February 1, 2010)
The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, had said they intended to rescue Haitian children left parentless in the quake and take them to what they described as an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. But they acknowledged failing to seek approval to remove the children from Haiti, and several of the children have at least one living parent.
The Americans will face a potentially extended legal proceeding in Haiti and could, if convicted, face prison terms of up to 15 years.
In a sign of the cloudy nature of the case, the prosecutor, Mazar Fortil, decided not to pursue what could have been the most serious charge against the group, that of trafficking. The charges will now be considered by an investigative judge, who has up to three months to decide whether to pursue the matter further.
The leader of the group, Laura Silsby, a businesswoman who describes herself as a missionary as well, has also come under scrutiny at home in Idaho, where employees complain of unpaid wages and the state has placed liens on her company bank account.
The lawyer for the group, Edwin Coq, said after a hearing on Thursday that 9 of his 10 clients were "completely innocent," but that, apparently in a reference to Ms. Silsby, "If the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group."
The Haitian capital lost courthouses, judges, lawyers and its main prison in the earthquake, straining the judiciary along with everything else. Prosecutors said this was the first criminal case to receive a hearing in Port-au-Prince since the natural disaster.
The hearing took place in a hilltop courthouse that had minor cracks in the walls and scores of squatters living outside. A crush of journalists sought access to the defendants on their way into the courthouse, where police officers in riot gear prevented access.
The Americans were transported in two Haitian police vehicles — one labeled "Child Protection Brigade" — from the police station where they have been held since the weekend to Port-au-Prince's main criminal courthouse. Mr. Coq said beforehand that their immediate release was possible, and the police who transported the detainees took their luggage to the hearing as well in case they were to be freed.
Ms. Silsby, who had helped organize the group's mission, sounded a hopeful note as she waited to be taken into court, saying, "We're just trusting God for a positive outcome."
But during the hearing, Jean Ferge Joseph, a deputy prosecutor, told the Americans that their case was not being dropped and that it would be sent to a judge for further review.
"That judge can free you, but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings," the deputy prosecutor said, according to Reuters.
When they received the news, the Americans did not appear distraught, Mr. Coq, their lawyer, said. "They prayed," he said. "They looked down and prayed."
Reuters, which had a reporter in the session, reported that all 10 of the detainees acknowledged to the prosecutor that they had apparently violated the law when they tried to take the children from Haiti, although they said they were unaware of that until after they were detained.
"We did not have any intention to violate the law, but now we understand it's a crime," said Paul Robert Thompson, a pastor who led the group in prayer during a break in the session.
Ms. Silsby asked the prosecutor not only to release the group, whose members range in age from 18 to 55, but also to allow them to continue their work in Haiti.
"We simply wanted to help the children," she said. "We petition the court not only for our freedom but also for our ability to continue to help."
As they were led out of the courthouse one by one for their return to jail, some of the Americans smiled as reporters surrounded them. They left without comment.
The Americans were arrested last Friday as they tried to take the 33 children by bus to the Dominican Republic, where they said they were in the process of leasing or building an orphanage. It is unclear if the group had arranged for someplace to house the children in the Dominican Republic.
A Web site for the group, the New Life Children's Refuge, said that the Haitian children there would stay in a "loving Christian homelike environment" and be eligible for adoption through agencies in the United States.
The children are being taken care of now at SS Children's Villages, an Austrian-run orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
The Americans and members of their churches have said they are innocent of any wrongdoing, and described the case as a misunderstanding. In an interview this week, Ms. Silsby said the group had come to Haiti to rescue children orphaned by the earthquake, and that "our hearts were in the right place."
But some of the children had living parents, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and to allow them to return to Haiti to visit.
Ms. Silsby had made her intentions known to child protection officials, human rights experts and Dominican authorities in Haiti, all of whom warned her that she could be charged with trafficking if she tried to take children out of the country without proper documentation.
Some Haitian leaders have called the Americans kidnappers, but their case also has created divisions. Outside the courthouse on Thursday, one onlooker backed the Americans. "The process they followed was wrong, but they were not stealing kids," said Béatrice St.-Julien. "They came here to help us."
Until Thursday, Haitian judicial officials had left open the possibility that the group could be returned to the United States for trial, sparing Haiti's crippled justice system a high-profile criminal prosecution fraught with diplomatic and political land mines.
American officials have talked with Haitian judicial authorities about the case, but it is unclear exactly how much lobbying Washington is doing behind the scenes to affect the outcome. The State Department has said the decision to pursue charges for any possible violations of Haitian law remains a Haitian decision.
One expert said that by pursuing the case Haitian authorities seemed to be trying to make a point.
"Haiti's decision to prosecute the Baptist missionaries may be motivated, in part, by the need to show its own people and the world that it is a viable entity that is tackling the grave problem of international child abductions in Haiti," Christopher J. Schmidt, a lawyer with Bryan Cave LLP in St. Louis who has been involved in multiple cases of international kidnapping, said in a statement.
Ginger Thompson contributed reporting.
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Charisa Coulter who was arrested by Haitian authorities for attempting to take Haitian children to the Dominican Republic, is led out of the courthouse after being charged with abduction into waiting police vehicles after being iindicted in Port-au-Prince.
comments
Sign In to E-Mail
Reprints
Share
By MARC LACEY
Published: February 4, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week without the government's consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Back Story With The Times's Marc Lacey
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
Panoramas: Views From Haiti
Related
The Lede: Woman Detained in Haiti Also Due in Idaho Court
The Lede: Questions for Baptists, Praise for Scientologists in Haiti
The Lede: Road From Haiti Was Paved With Good Intentions, American Baptists Say
Room for Debate: Haiti's Children and the Adoption Question (February 1, 2010)
The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, had said they intended to rescue Haitian children left parentless in the quake and take them to what they described as an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. But they acknowledged failing to seek approval to remove the children from Haiti, and several of the children have at least one living parent.
The Americans will face a potentially extended legal proceeding in Haiti and could, if convicted, face prison terms of up to 15 years.
In a sign of the cloudy nature of the case, the prosecutor, Mazar Fortil, decided not to pursue what could have been the most serious charge against the group, that of trafficking. The charges will now be considered by an investigative judge, who has up to three months to decide whether to pursue the matter further.
The leader of the group, Laura Silsby, a businesswoman who describes herself as a missionary as well, has also come under scrutiny at home in Idaho, where employees complain of unpaid wages and the state has placed liens on her company bank account.
The lawyer for the group, Edwin Coq, said after a hearing on Thursday that 9 of his 10 clients were "completely innocent," but that, apparently in a reference to Ms. Silsby, "If the judiciary were to keep one, it could be the leader of the group."
The Haitian capital lost courthouses, judges, lawyers and its main prison in the earthquake, straining the judiciary along with everything else. Prosecutors said this was the first criminal case to receive a hearing in Port-au-Prince since the natural disaster.
The hearing took place in a hilltop courthouse that had minor cracks in the walls and scores of squatters living outside. A crush of journalists sought access to the defendants on their way into the courthouse, where police officers in riot gear prevented access.
The Americans were transported in two Haitian police vehicles — one labeled "Child Protection Brigade" — from the police station where they have been held since the weekend to Port-au-Prince's main criminal courthouse. Mr. Coq said beforehand that their immediate release was possible, and the police who transported the detainees took their luggage to the hearing as well in case they were to be freed.
Ms. Silsby, who had helped organize the group's mission, sounded a hopeful note as she waited to be taken into court, saying, "We're just trusting God for a positive outcome."
But during the hearing, Jean Ferge Joseph, a deputy prosecutor, told the Americans that their case was not being dropped and that it would be sent to a judge for further review.
"That judge can free you, but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings," the deputy prosecutor said, according to Reuters.
When they received the news, the Americans did not appear distraught, Mr. Coq, their lawyer, said. "They prayed," he said. "They looked down and prayed."
Reuters, which had a reporter in the session, reported that all 10 of the detainees acknowledged to the prosecutor that they had apparently violated the law when they tried to take the children from Haiti, although they said they were unaware of that until after they were detained.
"We did not have any intention to violate the law, but now we understand it's a crime," said Paul Robert Thompson, a pastor who led the group in prayer during a break in the session.
Ms. Silsby asked the prosecutor not only to release the group, whose members range in age from 18 to 55, but also to allow them to continue their work in Haiti.
"We simply wanted to help the children," she said. "We petition the court not only for our freedom but also for our ability to continue to help."
As they were led out of the courthouse one by one for their return to jail, some of the Americans smiled as reporters surrounded them. They left without comment.
The Americans were arrested last Friday as they tried to take the 33 children by bus to the Dominican Republic, where they said they were in the process of leasing or building an orphanage. It is unclear if the group had arranged for someplace to house the children in the Dominican Republic.
A Web site for the group, the New Life Children's Refuge, said that the Haitian children there would stay in a "loving Christian homelike environment" and be eligible for adoption through agencies in the United States.
The children are being taken care of now at SS Children's Villages, an Austrian-run orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
The Americans and members of their churches have said they are innocent of any wrongdoing, and described the case as a misunderstanding. In an interview this week, Ms. Silsby said the group had come to Haiti to rescue children orphaned by the earthquake, and that "our hearts were in the right place."
But some of the children had living parents, and some of those parents said that the Baptists had promised simply to educate the youngsters in the Dominican Republic and to allow them to return to Haiti to visit.
Ms. Silsby had made her intentions known to child protection officials, human rights experts and Dominican authorities in Haiti, all of whom warned her that she could be charged with trafficking if she tried to take children out of the country without proper documentation.
Some Haitian leaders have called the Americans kidnappers, but their case also has created divisions. Outside the courthouse on Thursday, one onlooker backed the Americans. "The process they followed was wrong, but they were not stealing kids," said Béatrice St.-Julien. "They came here to help us."
Until Thursday, Haitian judicial officials had left open the possibility that the group could be returned to the United States for trial, sparing Haiti's crippled justice system a high-profile criminal prosecution fraught with diplomatic and political land mines.
American officials have talked with Haitian judicial authorities about the case, but it is unclear exactly how much lobbying Washington is doing behind the scenes to affect the outcome. The State Department has said the decision to pursue charges for any possible violations of Haitian law remains a Haitian decision.
One expert said that by pursuing the case Haitian authorities seemed to be trying to make a point.
"Haiti's decision to prosecute the Baptist missionaries may be motivated, in part, by the need to show its own people and the world that it is a viable entity that is tackling the grave problem of international child abductions in Haiti," Christopher J. Schmidt, a lawyer with Bryan Cave LLP in St. Louis who has been involved in multiple cases of international kidnapping, said in a statement.
Ginger Thompson contributed reporting.
Entradas
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario